Zoom meeting, plus RDP, plus big-screen(s) = major GPU/GPU Engine/CPU usage

[JOHN_FL]

First of all, I'll acknowledge this isn't necessarily Zoom's fault, but nonetheless, the issue becomes a major obstacle for people who (1) use Zoom all day at long, (2) who RDP into another machine, (3) who attend (this isn't limited to hosting and screen sharing, just attending a meeting can be problematic), lots of meetings, and (4) who have big monitors.

The issue is, RDP alone (before we even talk about Zoom) uses lots of GPU resources on the client side (to be unambiguous, client is my laptop at home running zoom, host is the desktop computer at my office that I RDP into.)

Add to that having a big monitor (or two).  For example, I have my laptop screen, plus a 32 inch 4k monitor over my built in video card, plus a 20 inch monitor at 1600 by 1200 only over an external USB-C to HDMI adapter.  I configured RDP to use my two external monitors, while the built-in laptop screen shows just the laptop's local display  (not the remote desktop) screen, while RDP is running maximized.  (Yes, RDP can do that with a little patience.)
Still before Zoom comes into the picture, if I create a small window, Notepad for example, position it within the smaller 20 inch monitor, grab the header area and zig zag it just a few pixels left/right/left/right, while keeping Task Manager visible on the processes page, I'll see RDP taking up 20 percent of the GPU engine.  If I move to the 32 inch 4k monitor and do the same, the GPU will hit 75 percent.

So... add Zoom to the picture, regardless of whether I'm sharing or not, moving a window anywhere in the RDP session overpowers the GPU/CPU in a big way and makes Zoom crazy/laggy in audio/video, and triggers a low resources warning.  (RDP GPU stops at 75 percent roughly in the 4k 32 inch monitor, and desktop window manager at 25 percent.  But basic math, 75 plus 25 = 100.   In the 20 inch monitor GPU stops at about 25 percent and Desktop Window Manager about 6 percent.  Scrolling but not moving a window hits the CPU/GPU hard, but into as hard as moving a window.   Working inside a window is again a little less of an impact.

At first I thought perhaps the external video adapter for the 20 inch monitor was helping, but after some experimentation with different screen resolutions, I feel confident saying it's screen-size, not video adapter, hitting the GPU hard.

I've read dozens of posts here and elsewhere, and experimented with one common piece of advice, overriding the host computer to use its internal video card, but that so far hasn't helped.   Similarly, I configured both Zoom and RDP via Settings/Display/Graphic settings/Options with different levels of priorities (power save vs. high performance.)  I even found a post about making sure the laptop can breathe easily.  Mine does anyway, but I di vacuum the fan area so it's dust free.  So far, nothing has made a big difference.

Anyway...   Any other ideas?  Any zoom employees who can at least forward this to product engineering?  My theory is it's too much competition for H.264 codecs, which RDP uses nowadays?  Could there be ways to compete less for the same GPU resources?